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Washington - Nine years after he announced his decision to run for the highest office in the country, US President Barack Obama today said that the politics of the country has become worse, but he is still hopeful.

"I will be the first to admit that the tone of our politics hasn't gotten better, but worse," Obama said in his weekly radio and web address to the nation from Illinois State Senate where he had announced his presidential bid nine years ago with the message of hope.

"Too many people feel like the system is rigged, and their voices don't matter. And when good people are pushed away from participating in our public life, more powerful and extreme voices will fill the void," he said.

Houston - Mahie Gill stars in award winning filmmaker Trisha Ray's next venture 'Orphan Train' and the actress says working on the thriller was a memorable experience.

The 40-year-old actress, best known for her role of Paro in Anurag Kashyap's critically acclaimed film 'Dev D', is playing the lead role in the independent American film.

"I loved the character that I portrayed and Trisha is the funniest and intelligent director, she is superb and I am sure we will work more together soon," Mahie told PTI.

The 'Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster' actress plays the role of an Environmental Protection Agent 'Helen Prost', who is on a mission to investigate the involvement of radioactive isotopes in the deaths of children kidnapped by the local cartel.

Los Angeles - Actress Emma Roberts is set to reprise her role as Chanel Oberlin on the second season of TV series 'Scream Queens'.

Following speculations on who's back for the new instalment of the hit FOX horror comedy series, the actress herself has confirmed that she will return, reported E! Online.

"Yeah, Chanel is back!" Roberts, 25, said at the Ralph Lauren Polo presentation at New York Fashion Week. "I'm so excited for season two of Scream Queens because I can only imagine what the writers have in store for Chanel."

Season 2 will be set in a hospital and will reportedly feature four new male characters, who are all doctors.

Los Angeles - Comedian Hannibal Buress has joined the star cast of Paramount's 'Baywatch', a big-screen adaptation of the popular 1990s TV series of the same name.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 33-year-old actor will play one of the locals in the bay community in the film, which also stars Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Zac Efron and Bollywood star Priyanak Chopra, who plays the villain in the film.

The 'Baywatch' movie is directed by Seth Gordon and will center on the leader of an elite group of lifeguards, played by Johnson, who is forced to team up with Efron's young former Olympian character in order to save the beloved bay.

Washington - Demanding an end to Pakistan's "forceful" occupation of Balochistan , hundreds of Baloch- Americans and leaders from this restive Pakistani province held a peaceful protest in front of the White House to seek US intervention and deployment of NATO troops in the region.

"At least 35,000 Baloch are missing. There is a grave violation of human rights on the people of Balochistan and all this is being perpetrated by the Pakistan Army and the ISI," said Mama Abdul Qadir Baloch in an interview to PTI yesterday in front of the White House.

Washington, Feb. 13 : The United States Government said that it has approved the sale of eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan built by Lockheed Martin Corp, radar and other equipment in a deal valued at 699 million dollars.

The Dawn reports that Pentagon's Defence Security Cooperation Agency which oversees foreign arms sales said it had notified lawmakers about the possible deal.

The proposed deal will go through a 30-day notification period after which it will be finalized.

The agency said that F-16s would allow Pakistan's Air Force to operate in all weather environments and at night, improving its self- defense capability and bolstering its ability to conduct counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations.

Washington D. C, Feb. 13 :The United States House of Representatives has passed legislation to further punish North Korea for its nuclear program, human rights record and cyber crimes.

The legislation would sanction anyone who engages in facilitates or contributes to North Korea's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, arms-related materials, luxury goods, human rights abuses, activities undermining cyber security and the provision of materials for such activities.

Penalties include seizure of assets, visa bans and denial of government contracts, reports ABC News.

The package includes sanctions targeting North Korea and 'secondary sanctions'against those who do business with it.

Los Angeles - The sixth instalment in the hit "Transformers" franchise will be a movie about one of its popular characters, Bumblebee.

Paramount and Hasbro have revealed that fans can expect one "Transformers" film a year starting in 2017, with "Transformers 5" scheduled to hit theaters June 23, reported Aceshowbiz.

The Bumblebee film is set for a June 8, 2018, release, with the third of these announced films due out June 28, 2019.

Tom Warner, the "Transformers" franchise leader for Hasbro, further explained the plans.

"This summer we worked closely with a talented team of A-list screenwriters to map out the future of the 'Transformers' cinematic universe, and as Brian announced earlier, things kick off in a major way in

Washington D. C, Feb 12 : About 1 in 5 adolescent victims of sexual harassment on the social media, especially Facebook, reported the abuse to the provider, but in nearly half of those cases the provider took no action, according to a new study.

In the article, the findings show that the more negative emotions such as anger and shame victims experience, the less they feel in control of the situation. Public visibility of the sexual content and the inability to remove it from the site add to these feelings, increasing the likelihood that the adolescent will report the incident.

Washington - India-Pakistan rivalry has spilled over into cyberspace through hacktivism and even "state-sponsored" attacks with popular Indian websites more prone to such strikes during high-profile events like cricket matches and Independence Day, a CIA-backed threat intelligence company has said.

Analysing patterns of cyber-attacks around several events like Independence Day, 26/11 and cricket matches, Boston-based Recorded Future in its report suggested many possible motivations and objectives of the cyber activities between India and Pakistan, ranging from loosely- affiliated hacktivist groups defacing symbols and institutions to more coordinated state-sponsored attacks.

Washington D. C, Feb 12 : Smiles and frowns are usually contagious - they tend to wind up on everyone's face and now, a new research has revealed why.

Growing evidence shows that an instinct for facial mimicry allows us to empathize with and even experience other people's feelings. If we can't mirror another person's face, it limits our ability to read and properly react to their expressions.

In their paper, University of Wisconsin's Paula Niedenthal and Adrienne Wood and colleagues describe how people in social situations simulate others' facial expressions to create emotional responses in themselves.

Washington - ISIS has reportedly opened a new technical "help desk" that instructs terrorists on how to evade electronic surveillance and prevent them from committing security mistakes that could endanger their lives.

The Electronic Horizon Foundation (EHF) was launched on January 30 as a joint effort of several of the top ISIS cyber security experts, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) said in a new report.

While researchers have previously uncovered an ISIS "help desk" and 34-page manual that help extremists encrypt their communications, MEMRI said the EHF takes these services to a new level.

"Jihadis have long sought technical information, which has been confined in the past to various password-protected jihadi forums," The Hill quoted the MEMRI report as saying.

Washington D. C, Feb 11 : A team of physicists in Germany has built the most accurate timepiece on Earth, achieving unprecedented levels of accuracy with a new atomic clock.

Atomic clock experts from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) are the first research group in the world to have built an optical single-ion clock which attains an accuracy which had only been predicted theoretically so far.

As early as 1981, Hans Dehmelt, who was to be awarded a Nobel Prize later, had already developed the basic notions of how to use an ion kept in a high-frequency trap to build a clock which could attain the then unbelievably low relative measurement uncertainty in the range of 1E-18.

Washington D. C, Feb 11 : With a new study finding four distinct patterns of commitment, predicting the fate of a relationship has become easier.

University of Illinois's Brian Ogolsky said that the four types of dating couples that they found included the dramatic couple, the conflict-ridden couple, the socially involved couple and the partner-focused couple.

The researchers developed these categories after studying graphs created by 376 dating couples in their mid-twenties. Over a nine-month period, participants tracked how committed they were to marrying their partner and why. Ogolsky asked participants to explain their reasoning when their commitment level had gone up or down.

New York, Feb. 11 :The Sri Lankan government's appointment to parliament of a former army chief whose forces were implicated in widespread abuses contradicts pledges to investigate alleged war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.

On February 9, 2016, the United National Party of Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe appointed Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka to parliament as a national list member for a seat vacated by the death of an incumbent.

Washington D. C, Feb 11 : On Valentine's Day, cupid is going to bring love and your lover may bring an inferior gift, but don't despair as according to a new study, people tend to skimp on their V-Day gifts only if they really feel close to their partner.

The University of Chicago study found that if a store is offering a free gift with a slightly inferior box of chocolates, you are more likely to go for it instead of the best chocolates in the store.

In the study, Professor Ayelet Fishbach, University of Florida's Yanping Tu and University of Chicago's Alex Shaw found that people are more likely to take from a close other than a distant other.

Los Angeles - Natalie Portman has joined Jessica Chastain in "Mommy" writer-director's "The Death and Life of John F Donovan".

Nicholas Hoult and Thandie Newton have also joined the cast of Dolan's first English-language film, which stars Chastain as a villainous gossip columnist, said The Hollywood Reporter.

"Game of Throne" actor Kit Harington stars as an American TV star in his late 20s and his correspondence with a young actor-to-be living with his mother in England.

Their lives take a dramatic turn when the existence of their pen-pal relationship is publicly exposed by a gossip columnist. A decade later, the younger actor revisits the events over the course of an interview. Other actors set to star in the indie film include Kathy Bates and Susan Sarandon. (PTI)

Los Angeles - Filmmaker Steven Spielberg has pushed the release date of his movie 'Ready Player One' to March 30, 2018 so that it avoids a box-office clash with 'Star Wars: Episode VIII' on December 25, 2017.

'Ready Player One' is the director's adaptation of Ernest Cline's best-selling fantasy novel.

The shift happened after Disney announced it was moving the 'Star Wars' sequel from May 2017 to December 15 of that year, the date where 'Ready Player One' was situated.

The new date of 'Ready Player One' coincides with Easter, and there are no major movies scheduled to open in April 2018, save for an animated film from Laika, giving the movie a wide berth.